Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

RED- WATER. 3T1
darker yellow than in jaundice—it has a tinge of brown. The conjunctiva
is also yellow, inclining to brown. The urine becomes of a
darker hue—it is almost black. The animal usually shrinks when
the loins are pressed upon ; occasionally there is much tenderness,
but oftener the beast scarcely shrinks more than he is accustomed to
do when laboring under almost every disease. The belly is not so
much tucked up as drawn together at the sides. There is considerable
loss of condition—the legs and ears get cold—the animal is
less inclined to move ; there is evident and genaral debility. In
every stage there is costiveness, and that exceedingly difficult to
overcome ; but, on close inquiry, it is ascertained that there was
diarrhoea at the beginning, and which was violent and fetid, and which
suddenly stopped.
Examination after death shows the skin and the cellular membrane
underneath to be of a dark yellow ; the fat about the belly is
of the same hue, or perhaps of a lighter tinge. The first and
second stomachs are full : there is no fermentation and little gas, or
sour smell. The manyplus is perfectly dry—baking could hardly
add to the hardness. The leaves of the manyplus cling to the food
contained between them : the papillae leave their evident indentations
on the hardened mass, and that mass cannot be detached
without considerable portions of the cuticle clinging to it. The
fourth stomach is empty, and^ the lining membrane covered with
brown mucus, exhibiting patches of inflammation underneath. The
intestines are rarely inflamed. There is no fluid in the belly, nor inflammation
of its lining membrane. The kidney is of a yellowbrown
color, and sometimes a little enlarged, but there is rarely inflammation
or disease about it. Drops of dark and brown-colored
urine may be pressed from it. The lungs display no mark of dangerous
disease, but they too have a yellow hue. The fluid in the
bag of the heart is yellow. The chyle, which is traversing the
lacteal vessels, is yellow too, and there is the same discoloration of
the fluids everywhere.
The-liver is evidently of a darker color ; it is enlarged, generally
inflamed, sometimes rotten, and filled with black blood. The gall-bladder
is full, almost to distension. The bile is thick and black : it
looks more like lampblack mixed with oil, than like healthy bile.
All these appearances lead to t}ie necessary conclusion that this
is far more a disease of the digestive organs than of the kidney ; in
fact, that it is not primarily an affection of the kidney. It is dis-
ease of the liver, either consisting in inflammation of that organ,
accompanied by increased secretion of bile-, or a change in the qual-
ity of the bile. In consequence of this, the whole circulatory fluid
becomes tinged with the color of the bile, and which is shown in»tbe.
hue of the skin generally, and in ;he cp}